Sexist Rush Limbaugh & Miss America?

I'm wondering who the genius was who decided to put Rush Limbaugh on the panel of judges for the 2010 Miss America Pageant. Here we have a man who only judges women by their looks - in the ultimate contest of just that.

The women I mentioned this to responded with comments like: "They still do that silly thing," to "Who cares anyway, it is hardly an intellectual contest," to "Wow, how appropriate for a group of women who are the farthest from what most of us stand for anyway."

So, one has to wonder. Why do we still have these contests? Nowadays, the women look more and more like Barbie dolls, with the same type of plastic parts, and virtually nothing based on their brains. It's all about strutting around in bikinis and overdone evening gowns, with breast implants, and liposuctioned bodies. Little, if any, emphasis is put on developing the mind at all. In the case of Carrie Prejean, the mind just seems completely closed off.

But, if they are going to have the contests anyway, shouldn't some care be put into who is judging it? On Huffington Post today, Limbaugh's latest sexist comment was noted as he insulted CNN reporter Carol Costello:

Keith Olbermann gave Rush Limbaugh the silver medal in his "Worst Persons in the World" segment for insulting a CNN reporter, Carol Costello, who examined Limbaugh's show and monologues for a piece on talk radio. Costello consulted a psychiatrist to delve into what Limbaugh is really doing; the shrink concluded that Limbaugh is a bully. Limbaugh's reply was, "Carol you need to go sit on a fire hydrant and, you know, improve your day."

As Olbermann put it: "You do not need a psychiatrist to figure out that piece of emotional fantasy. Emotionally Rush Limbaugh is a 14-year-old boy."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/20/limbaugh-makes-countowns_n_328002.html

No one says that the Miss America contest is one of scholars, but to put a man - who acts like a hormonal teenager - on as a judge who makes sexist comments with his morning coffee...well, even in this case, it is a little off the mark.

My guess is there is a few in the group of contestants who probably are smart and are using the contest to put themselves through school or better their lives, but I would bet they are in the minority. Still yet, maybe the remaining ones don't realize Limbaugh makes these types of comments regularly, or don't think it is any big deal.

But it actually is. Because even though it isn't a contest of intelligence, it is still a representation of women - even if it is an embarrassingly weak one. And to put a sexist pig like Limbaugh in there to drool over them while he insults them at the same time seems more than a little lame.